Davis Magnet School delivers green message

With a fishing pole in hand and the remains of a “compost cupcake” on her face, 5-year-old Avalon Freyder dipped her line into the pseudo pool of mini rubber ducks and trivia questions for a game intended to teach children about the environment.

For the kindergartner, she said taking care of the planet is important “because you don’t want to get the Earth dirty.”

Protecting the environment was the subject of Davis Magnet School’s first Eco-Education Night on Thursday meant to “bring our community together and raise awareness of the eco-education that is going on at Davis,” said Lisa Manfredi, the Parent Teacher Assn.’s Green Team and Learning Garden chairwoman.

Parents and kids munching on carrots gathered at the Costa Mesa school to hear a presentation by Evan Marks, founder and director of the Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano, and a book reading by author Derek Sabori.

Marks gave easy tips to live sustainably, such as carrying a reusable water bottle, using a bucket in the shower to catch the water as it heats, making beeswax candles and using homemade cleaning products.

“My hope here today is you guys become the conduit for change,” he said to the crowd.

Teacher Lisa Holman’s fifth- and sixth-grade combination class showed off the school’s new interactive ecology center — a project the class undertook to win $10,000 from the Disney Planet Challenge.

The class will find out this spring if it won.

The center features different stations where students can create trash art, read eco-centered books, see what exactly is in landfills, watch the progress of hydroponic plants and see worms in action in a composting bin.

Through the project, the class has reduced campus waste by 60%.

The idea was to teach students about what they can do to help the planet.

“We want them to know they are our future and our planet is in dire need,” Holman said.

britney.barnes@latimes.com

Twitter: @britneyjbarnes